Rayer blasts Blues following last day defeat

Ryan Lewis

Bedford Blues head coach Mike Rayer identified ‘poor skill’ as the reason his side lost 17-26 to Nottingham at Goldington Road on Saturday afternoon.

A bumper crowd of 2,517 people turned out for the Blues’ last fixture of the season, but the hosts were unable to end their campaign with a win as the visitors secured the victory thanks to a dominant first half display.

If you look at the first half we made so many errors with the ball in hand and we could never get a shot off

Bedford Blues head coach Mike Rayer

Bedford were much better after the interval –epitomised by two tries from Pat Tapley – but they couldn’t come from behind and were forced to face defeat for the second week in a row.

Speaking after the match, Rayer said: “It was down to poor skill, simple as that.

“If you look at the first half we made so many errors with the ball in hand and we could never get a shot off, we just couldn’t get beyond first phase.

“They are skilful players out there and I’m lost for words because it’s not like we don’t do a lot of skill practice; we just kept dropping the ball.

He continued: “We dropped the ball three times from quick tap penalties today and you can’t get any continuity from that.

“We never could build pressure and it was pretty desperate stuff in the end. We made a better fist of it in the second half of course, but it was too late by then.”